Friday's Gathering Matches Teens With Senior Citizens

Monday

Feb 4, 2013 at 11:52 PM

About 100 other residents of Spring Haven Retirement in Winter Haven will gather Friday night to dress up, socialize and dance.

By GARY WHITETHE LEDGER

Alex McConkey never attended the prom when he was a student at Cathedral Latin High School in Cleveland.Some 70 years later, McConkey has been occupied lately with deciding what he'll wear to his Senior Prom.McConkey and about 100 other residents of Spring Haven Retirement in Winter Haven will gather Friday night to dress up, socialize and dance. What makes the event unusual, though, is that this Senior Prom isn't just for senior citizens.The Spring Haven residents will welcome about 40 students from Auburndale High School, teenagers for whom the word "senior" means a 12th-grader.McConkey, 88, said he enjoys dancing but isn't sure about the prospect of hoofing it with teenaged girls."I don't know if my legs will hold out on me," he said.Katie Swartz, a junior at Auburndale High and one of the event's planners, said she hasn't had trouble persuading students to attend a dance with people older than many of their grandparents."You would really think so, but honestly we have so many willing people," said Swartz, 16. "I know plenty of guys that have been looking forward to this event."The Senior Prom is an extension of a holiday event Spring Haven first held in 2011 and repeated in December, Elves for the Elderly. Those parties brought in students from Auburndale High to socialize with Spring Haven residents."When we first had it, I was really apprehensive," Spring Haven activities director Lisa Roberts said. "I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I'm going to have 50 kids in the building? How are they going to interact? Are the residents going to talk to them?' Well, what happened was phenomenal. What was supposed to be an hour-long event turned out to be two hours, and we had to shoo them (the students) out the door."Swartz attended the first Elves for the Elderly party, and last summer she did an internship at Spring Haven, assisting Roberts in the facility's three units: independent living, assisted living and memory care. The two were talking last summer when Roberts raised the possibility of inviting Auburndale students for a prom, having read about a similar event at a retirement center in another state."I mentioned to Katie how a senior prom would kind of be a neat thing, and she was immediately like, ‘I want to do it,'" Roberts said.

EVENING IN PARISSwartz, an honor student, represents the musical theater program in Auburndale's Student Government Association. She pitched the idea to the association and to members of the school's administration.Swartz said her school's involvement goes beyond the 40 students who will attend. Auburndale High's yearbook staff will take photos, and members of the National Art Honor Society are painting a backdrop for the dance."I think our generation is looked down upon sometimes, especially in the news with all these bad things happening," Swartz said. "But especially from my school I know we have a lot of good young citizens who are really good people, and I think if we start intermingling them with the elderly population we'll get a better outlook on my generation."The prom, with the theme "An Evening in Paris," will be held in Spring Haven's dining room. One afternoon last week, Roberts pointed out strings of lights set up around the nearby swimming pool overlooking Lake Hartridge.Since word of the event began spreading, Roberts said several local groups have lent their support. Residents from The Hamptons, a senior mobile-home community in Auburndale, have donated dresses for Spring Haven's seniors to wear to the prom. Roberts said Lakeland-based Lighthouse Ministries invited Spring Haven residents to come and pick out clothing from their thrift stores at no charge.Cornerstone Hospice donated $800 worth of corsages and boutonnieres, Roberts said, while another company is providing wine and a Champagne fountain. The Brass Heart Band will perform for a small fraction of its normal fee, Roberts said, and a local chapter of USA Dance is supplying ballroom dancers to perform at no cost.The Spring Haven residents who plan to attend the prom range in age from 72 to 100, Roberts said."I have two 98-year-olds who are so excited they can't stand it," she said. "One of them is always my last one standing at the New Year's Eve party."Spring Haven resident Reba Martin, 82, is looking forward to the prom after some initial trepidation."At first, I thought, ‘Oh, no, I don't think so,'" she said, "and then I came around and then I found myself at Dillard's" — shopping for an outfit.She said she plans to wear a black skirt and a cream top.

DANCING JITTERSMartin and McConkey are both widowed and used to live across the street from each other when their spouses were alive. They are now close friends and sometimes go dancing together."We shuffle around," said McConkey, a retired maintenance foreman and World War II veteran. "No jitterbugging."Martin attended her prom as a senior in the class of 1948 at Carrier Mills (Ill.) High School. Does she plan to dance with any of the students?"Not me, because they're too ... too fast," she said. "I think they (residents) will be glad they're coming in, but I'm not sure they'll dance with teenagers."Roberts retorted: "I think we're going to have more dancing than you think we will."Swartz acknowledged that the music will probably be slower than what her fellow students would choose for a dance soundtrack. But Roberts said she plans to include songs that will give the students a chance to do the Cupid Shuffle and the Electric Slide."We want to get the students to dance and the residents to see how they do dance these days," Roberts said.Roberts said some of the residents don't have any family in the area and rarely have contact with teenagers."Their eyes light up whenever a young person comes into the building," Roberts said. "They look forward to any opportunity they have to talk to a young person."Based on her experience with the Elves for the Elderly parties, Roberts said the benefits flow both ways."I think the kids look forward to it as much as the seniors do," she said. "They're excited. They come in there all gung ho. It always takes them just a few minutes to open up to each other. Before long they're laughing and having a great time."Swartz concurred. She has visited Spring Haven a few times since her internship last summer, and she said the residents anticipate their prom as eagerly as she awaits her school's prom in May."They're so ecstatic; they cant wait," she said. "Even when I was there (visiting), I was just one young person there and they all surround me and talk about how nice it was that I was there."

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. ]

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